


Covert

by honestgrins



Series: To Rely on the Kindness of Strangers [74]
Category: The Vampire Diaries (TV)
Genre: F/M, Fake Dating, Spies, criminal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-13
Updated: 2019-07-13
Packaged: 2020-06-27 16:51:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,424
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19795000
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/honestgrins/pseuds/honestgrins
Summary: kc + cia caroline fake dating for a mission international criminal spy klaus who doesn't know the dating is fake OR DOES HE





	Covert

**Author's Note:**

  * For [melsbels](https://archiveofourown.org/users/melsbels/gifts).



"Have you slept with him?"

Hot coffee sloshed in her cup as Caroline jolted. "God, Enzo," she hissed. "A little louder, why don't you?"

With an annoying smirk, her borrowed handler slid onto the park bench next to her. "Gorgeous, the only ones listening are your boyfriend's spies. If they don't already know you're shagging, then he must not be very good."

She could only stare at him blankly. "You have a death wish. An actual wish to die, because he-"

"Is too smitten with you to risk targeting your only friend in the city." Enzo knocked his shoulder with hers, tossing his arm around her back like he wasn't trying to antagonize one of the world's most reclusive players in the criminal underworld. "How is this vacation going?"

Sighing, Caroline leaned into the contact. As irritating as the MI6 agent had been throughout her brief stint in London, he wasn't wrong that he was the closest thing she had to a friend. And the mission had become...complicated. "He asked me to stay. Well, technically, he wants to take me to Paris, but," she waved her free hand, "stay with him."

His brow furrowed, apparently concerned. "It's been two weeks."

She winced over a shrug. "He likes me." 

"Are you sure about that?"

It wasn't a knock against her charms, she knew, but a genuine question all spies had to ask themselves when deep undercover. Intelligence was only as good as its accuracy, and well-placed confidence was everything. Caroline was good at her job; she was also in over her head with Klaus Mikaelson. "I'm not sure about anything."

* * *

"Your friend Lorenzo is a suspicious one."

Rolling her eyes, Caroline tilted her head up from where it laid in his lap to glare at him. They'd been having such a nice afternoon together, him reading a book and her checking socials on her tablet. He just had to go and ruin it with the whole supervillain schtick. "You don't get to call him paranoid for assuming you were having us watched when you were actually having us watched."

Klaus grinned down at her, brushing idle fingers through her hair. "I like taking care of you, sweetheart, which can mean the occasional guard or two. They were there for your safety, the eavesdropping was a mostly pleasant surprise."

"Only mostly?" she said quietly, looking away. 

His voice sounded sad, though he never paused the gentle strokes along her scalp. "You have doubts. About me."

Caroline set aside the tablet and sat up. She watched as his hand fell down to his side, forlorn. Her gaze trailed up his shirt, the threadbare Henley completely at odds with the rap sheet she knew accompanied the man underneath it. Still, she found herself toying with the hem, her lips curled up at how soft it was. "We met less than a month ago, where you introduced yourself as a dangerous criminal with my date's blood all over your nice suit." It had seemed prudent to prod the edge of his organization early by flirting with a lower level thug destined to screw up. The plan worked so beautifully that she was already in the web without needing to justify her presence, only to bait his interest and let his ego do the rest. "Forgive me for questioning the wisdom of this relationship."

Something hardened in Klaus's expression, only to smooth over almost instantly. Frowning, she lifted a finger to where his dimple would be if he smiled at her again. "What is it?"

He gently took her hand and pressed a kiss to her palm. His sudden pensiveness left her tense, while the slight flutter of his lashes made her melt. "You've never called it a relationship," he murmured, pulling her hand between both of his. "A rebound, a fling... Never a relationship."

"I-" She paused, realizing he was right. "Wow. Yeah."

His fingers laced through hers, not quite meeting her eyes. "One might think you've made a decision after all."

"Maybe I have," she admitted with a disbelieving laugh. "Oh, god. My mother is going to kill me."

With a wry smile, Klaus pulled her toward him until she rested against him. She went happily, leaning her head in the crook of his neck. "Perhaps. The good sheriff you describe does seem to treasure that small town life." Caroline smacked his chest, smiling fondly. "Your father, though. He could be a problem."

All of her training took over to prevent her muscles from locking up in fear. Her cover had been deceptively thin, the personal nature of the mission requiring a more intimate mingling of true and false details than the norm. The small town had changed, but the sheriff mother finally healed from a bitter divorce had not. Bill Forbes, however, was supposed to be dead and gone and estranged even before that. After all, Caroline hadn't gotten to Langley without the right connections, her dad's partner being one of them. If Klaus knew he was alive, then he also knew he was married to a spook - hardly a coincidence easily explained. She could play dumb, too confused to understand. But he'd never buy it; he liked that she was more clever than people assumed, had said so whenever one of his goons underestimated her willingness to escape surveillance. Coming clean as a CIA operative would just get her killed. That left only one productive avenue for their dynamic - to start a fight.

Offended pride puffed out her chest as a flush heated her whole face. Klaus watched her push back from him, his stare cool and assessing. "Excuse me? My father? What the hell are you talking about?"

His head canted to the side, almost amused. "Don't blame yourself, sweetheart. MI6 has always been a bit sloppy with agents from across the pond. You were good, took me a whole two days to notice the gaps in your story, another week to track down the particulars of your actual career."

"You've been playing me." Her throat felt raw as the horror clutched at her chest. Whether it was at being made or that he'd been pretending, she didn't know. She didn't want to know if it helped her get out alive. 

Klaus shrugged, any semblance of relaxation betrayed by the taut clench of his jaw, even as he gently rubbed his hand along the knee she'd left in his reach. "No more than you have been. Caroline Forbes, just two years into active status with Central Intelligence, more than capable of picking off my less than legal enterprises, one by one. Yet they threw you to the wolves by reducing you to the honeypot." His palm was warm, even through the leggings she wore. "You are worth so much more than that, my love."

He said it like he was still reading his book, some Napoleon biography, a matter of facts presented with only the slightest bias. And her whole being lurched with awe and confusion and _want_ that she couldn't compartmentalize, not with all the training in the world. "What?"

"I'd hand you the world if you'd let me," he answered, voice soft. "But I'd rather watch you take it by storm, questioning every authority with the tenacity those agencies of yours have likely tried to grind from your bones."

Struck speechless, Caroline could only blink at him. Within all of ten minutes, he'd turned her entire world upside down like it was nothing. "I don't understand," she finally said, more confused when he moved her into his lap. "Are you going to kill me?"

His nose brushed against her cheek, not quite close enough to kiss. Just tempt. "Now, why would I do a thing like that?"

She didn't have to say it aloud. Klaus was a king of the underworld, and she was supposed to expose him to the light and make him face the consequences he'd earned. Patiently, he waited for her to acknowledge the truth of him. He did bad things, and in many ways he was a bad man. Leaning in, her lips just barely touched his, and their breath slowed together. "This is a terrible, terrible idea."

"Everything to lose," Klaus agreed. A dimple peeked out from around his smirk, a sure sign of victory. For whom, she had no idea, but they were going to celebrate all the same. "What do you say, Caroline?"

Her mind whirred with various plans and outcomes, only to fall blissfully silent when she fell into him. Everything else could wait.


End file.
